Track Changes

Track Changes - videos

ewout — 2014-03-04T09:45:06Z

November 4: Opening debate ‘We the People'
During the opening debate we will address the large scale. Masterplans are generally plans that are made outside the direct influence of the inhabitants of the cities they are for. However, the everyday life of all inhabitants is influenced and sometimes to an important extent defined by these plans. Can the Masterplan be made more democratic? In Brazil participation of the inhabitants is written into law; every city has to produce a Masterplan and the organization of participation is mandatory. But how do you organize this? How do they do this in São Paulo and what are the results? Kazuo Nakano, as director Urban Development, can inform us about just that. How does the Sao Paulo method or process compare to participation in other cities and countries, like for example the USA where Damon Rich is involved with the planning of public space in Newark as the Urban Designer for the city of Newark. Or the Netherlands, where Crimson tried to organize various participation projects in Hoogvliet Rotterdam.

November 5: ‘Bottom up is not enough'
From Newark to São Paulo, Amsterdam to Mumbai, we see the same trend of temporality, pop-up, politically-engaged, DIY architecture being presented at Biennials and architecture events. How can this generation make the transition from the avant garde to the center, from the exception to the standard, from the elite to the society? From the small scale to the large?
We have two reasons to explore this question. Our conclusions after our own involvement in such a way of working show that temporary and participatory projects often work well in the short run, but that they are vulnerable in the long run.
The second reason for being anxious to examine this topic is that the large scale, worldwide urbanization in this century is taking the shape either of self-organized slums for the poor or of top down planned cities for the rich, designed by commercial consultants using outdated modernist concepts and financed by global capital. Can we really afford to leave the massive projects of the present and the future to the blind mechanisms of commerce and finance driven development?

November 6: ‘What's your Crisis?'
Unquestionably, the 'crisis' is a phenomenon that the entire world has felt and described, and thus serves as a backdrop for the new generation of architects. However, it is a general phenomenon that manifests itself in very different intensities, and in waves that break over various parts of the world. Thus, the financial crisis and its impact on the American construction and design world rapidly spread, but now begins to soften. That same crisis started relatively slowly in the Netherlands, but has lasted longer and created an extremely inert construction and design landscape. In countries such as Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland we see that crisis and recession has a dramatic effect on citizens and architects, and actually leads to visible and tangible results within the city. Outside Europe, we see countries like Brazil and China, whose economies grew enormously during our worst years, but who are now starting to show signs of slowing down. It is possible to draw a wave representing the global economic climate and then to indicate the position of different countries on it? Such a diagram would illustrate when different groups of designers could learn from their predecessors about absorbing the effects of a crisis and / or recession.

Blogs

ewout — 2013-11-04T08:49:28Z

See the blog of Rene Boer at the website of Failed Architecture.

See the blog of Natália Garcia at the website of super.abril.com.br/blogs/cidadesparapessoas.

Program

ewout — 2013-10-24T08:36:20Z

PROGRAM

Track Changes, November 4-7, 2013
The Dutch participation on the X Bienal de Arquitetura de Sao Paulo
Organized by: The New Institute (Guus Beumer, Alma Ploeger)
Curator: Crimson Architectural Historians (Ewout Dorman, Michelle Provoost, Simone Rots, Wouter Vanstiphout, Cassandra Wilkins)
Location: Centro Cultural de Sao Paulo, Rua Vergueiro 1000, CEP 01504–000, Paraiso, São Paulo, SP

November 4: Opening debate ‘We the People'
During the opening debate we will address the large scale. Masterplans are generally plans that are made outside the direct influence of the inhabitants of the cities they are for. However, the everyday life of all inhabitants is influenced and sometimes to an important extent defined by these plans. Can the Masterplan be made more democratic? In Brazil participation of the inhabitants is written into law; every city has to produce a Masterplan and the organization of participation is mandatory. But how do you organize this? How do they do this in Sao Paulo and what are the results? Kazuo Nakano, as director Urban Development, can inform us about just that. How does the Sao Paulo method or process compare to participation in other cities and countries, like for example the USA where Damon Rich is involved with the planning of public space in Newark as the Urban Designer for the city of Newark. Or the Netherlands, where Crimson tried to organize various participation projects in Hoogvliet Rotterdam.

Program
13.00 Doors open
13.30 Welcoming words by Guillerme Wisnik (curator X Bienal de Arquitetura de Sao Paulo), Guus Beumer (director of The New Institute, Rotterdam), Jan Gijs Schouten (Consul General of the Netherlands).
14.00 Introduction by Wouter Vanstiphout, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)
14.20 Kazuo Nakano, dir. Urban Development of São Paulo (Brazil)
14.40 Carla Fonseca, Economist, Garimpo de Soluções (Brazil)
15.00 Pauze
15.20 Michelle Provoost, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)
15.40 Damon Rich, Urban Designer for the City of Newark (USA)
16.00-16.45 Discussion
16.45 Opening of exhibition The Banality of Good. Six decades of New Towns, Architects, Money and Politics. Simone Rots, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL), Mark Ritsema, singer-songwriter (NL)
17.00 Drinks

Moderators:
Wouter Vanstiphout, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)
Maria Augusta Bueno, dir. Sao Paulo-lab Studio X (Brazil)

November 5: ‘Bottom up is not enough'
- start 1.30 pm
In this meeting we will discuss how the new alternative approaches to design and planning, can transcend the scale of the small-scaled ‘boutique' project, and be absorbed in policies, and/or by the market and thereby have a real impact on the large numbers of city dwellers. Which role should top down planning have and how can it be integrated with bottom up initiatives? Because for cities to function well and justly an infrastructure is needed that makes sure bottom up projects are facilitated and city-scaled projects are planned and realized in harmony with bottom up initiatives.
Furthermore, we will take a very critical look at the democratic potential of our projects, whether they really do reflect the societal demands, whether they can really be said to be by the people and not just for the people. We will also look at the ways in which the design profession can actually contribute to societies where there is a huge demand for more democracy, but still a resistant or even oppressive regime.

Presentations by:
Fernando Botton, URBZ (Brazil)
Sofia Saavedra, Juan Pablo Corvalan, Supersudaca (Latin America)
Milton Braga, MMBB, (Brazil)
Elma van Boxel, Zus (NL)
Francesco Barros, USINA, (Brazil)
Wagner Rebehy, Urban Think Tank (Venezuela)
Rupali Gupte & Prasad Shetty, Crit (India)

Moderating role:
Michelle Provoost & Wouter Vanstiphout, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)

Bloggers:
Rene Boer (NL), Natália Garcia (Brazil)

November 6: ‘What's your Crisis?'
- start 1.30 pm
Here we will focus on how the sudden and total lack of funding, or a sudden political upheaval, or a sudden humanitarian event, forces architects to rethink their way of working. Presenting projects from different parts of the world, will bring the difference of the now ubiquitous word ‘crisis' to the fore, and will expose the limitations or potentials of the profession. The discussion will be about the various strategies offices have developed in different situations. How successful have these strategies been and which problems have the offices involved met, which boundaries have they encountered or crossed.

Presentations by:
Carlos Teixeira, Vazio S/A (Brazil)
Nanne de Ru, Powerhouse Company (NL)
Charles Holland, FAT Architecture (UK)
23 Sul (Brazil)
Elma van Boxel, ZUS (NL)

Interventions by:
Jose Armenio de Brito Cruz, President Instituto de Architetos do Brasil (Brazil)
Mariana Fix, University of Campina (Brazil)
Ana Luiza Nobre, Architectural Historian, curator X Bienal (Brazil)

Moderating role:
Michelle Provoost & Wouter Vanstiphout, Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)

Bloggers:
Rene Boer (NL), Natália Garcia (Brazil)

November 7: Extra program: The Banality of Good
- 9.00 am
Shopping Iguatemi Alphaville (Alameda Rio Negro, 111 - Alphaville)
Opening event of EXPO Cidades Melhores Barueri 2014, an exposition about Alphaville, one of the new towns presented in The Banality of Good: Six Decades of New Towns, Architecture, Money and Politics, that is also part of the X Bienal de Arquitetura de Sao Paulo and shown in CCSP.
Crimson is invited to do the opening-speech of the EXPO in Alphaville. The opening will take place in the morning.

Introduction

ewout — 2013-10-08T09:33:37Z

As the Dutch contribution to the X Bienal de São Paulo in 2013, Crimson Architectural Historians and The New Institute have called a meeting that will take place from November 4th until 7th in a specially built room in the Centro Cultural São Paulo (CCSP), Rua Vergueiro, 1000 – Paraíso in São Paulo.

For this meeting we have called together a generation of architects and urbanists that is connected through a common reaction to the political and economic crises that urban communities all over the world are facing. Whether we are working in the Favelas of South America, the Townships of South Africa or in the crumbling housing estates of Europe, our generation has replaced the large-scale top down masterplan and the iconic hypermodern building with the participative, bottom-up, temporary and flexible approach.

What does this global convergence of design attitudes mean? Are we really seeing an international shift that explains the shared values of our generation? Or is the consensus about participation and bottom-up just a fashion?

And secondly: Is the acupuncture approach working? Or is it just creating short-lived dreams of a better world that are quickly appropriated by the very forces of commercialism and top-down power which they are supposed to replace?

In three days of open discussions we will try and find common ground, but not without defining sharply and clearly our differences. Projects and experiences from all over the world will be shared, and a central role will be given to the urban and political transformations our host city Sao Paulo is going through. Perhaps the most important ambition is to take architecture and urbanism out of the ghettoes of academia and the black boxes of politics and business, and to put it back into the centre of public debate.

Participants

ewout — 2013-10-08T09:33:35Z

Participants Track Changes

23SUL (Brazil) is a São Paulo based architectural practice. It is an organization that works like a cooperative. This configuration has direct impact on the project methodology, in which permanent critique and team debate generate a rich exchange of knowledge and ideas.
Projects range from small but meaningful retrofits to large-scale public facilities. The practice has expertise on implementing public transport facilities in all kinds of urban contexts, from the analysis of masterplans to construction details, in several major Brazilian cities.
23° south is the approximate latitude of São Paulo metropolitan area. The choice of this name for the practice expresses the desire to create context-related architecture and to build a spatial discourse grounded on horizontal, collective intelligence. 23 SUL was founded by André Sant'Anna da Silva, Gabriel Manzi Frayze Pereira, Ivo Magaldi, Lucas Girard, Luís Pompeo Matins, Luiz Florence, Moreno Zaidan Garcia, Rafael Urano Frajndlich, Tiago Oakley (Rodrigo Mendes 2005-2009).

Francisco Barros, USINA, (Brazil)

Fernando Botton, URBZ (Brazil) holds a master's in architecture from the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona (etsaB-UPC). He practiced architecture in Spain, Lebanon and Brazil. He was a project manager in a Brazilian Social Housing CDHU Competition, which won 1st prize. He was also a project manager in Escritório Paulistano de Arquitetura – 2011/12 for a Social Housing Project-Real Parque São Paulo, which received a Honor Mention Project in the Quito Biennial. He is part of URBZ, an experimental urban research and action collective that organizes participatory workshops, facilitates hands-on research projects, creates urban forms and concepts, and develops web content about urban space and places. URBZ has offices in Mumbai and Goa in India and in São Paulo and Santiago in Latin America.

Elma van Boxel, Zus (NL). Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman are the founding directors of Bureau ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles], a pro-active office that combines research with interventions in the contemporary urban landscape with productions ranging from urban plans and architecture to installations and campaigns. Within this complex field they operate constantly in between two positions: as co-author and as critic. Van Boxel studied landscape architecture at Larenstein University and Architecture and Urbanism at the Academy in Rotterdam. Koreman studied landscape architecture at Larenstein University and philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Milton Braga, MMBB (Brazil) studied architecture at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Ubanismo da Universidade de Sao Paulo (FAUUSP), Brazil, receiving three degrees, the preliminary degree in 1986, his Masters in 1999 and a PhD in 2006. He has been teaching at the FAUUSSP since 2001, with previous academic positions at the Universidade Sao Judas Tadeu and Universidade Braz Cubas, both in Sao Paulo, and the University of Florida, USA. He is author of the book on the Brasilia competition O concurso de Brasília: sete projetos para uma capital, 2010, which was awarded several times.
Milton is a founding partner of MMBB Arquitetos. Since its inception in 1991, MMBB has grown in notoriety, earning well-deserved recognition through numerous awards and exhibitions like the First Prize in the Private Competition promoted by the State Government of São Paulo for the new Lodging, Classes and Rehearsal Complex for the International Festival of Campos do Jordao (2009) and the Best Entry Award for the Watery Voids proposal in the 3rd International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam, 2007.

Crimson Architectural Historians (NL)

Jose Armenio de Brito Cruz, President Instituto de Architetos do Brasil (Brazil)

Maria Augusta Bueno, dir. São Paulo-lab Studio X (Brazil)

Mariana Fix, University of Campina (Brazil) is a professor at the Institute of Economics at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). She is the author of Partners in Exclusion (Parceiros da exclusão, 2001) and São Paulo Global City (São Paulo, Cidade Global, 2007). She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Campinas (2012), a master's degree in Sociology from the University of São Paulo (2003), and a professional degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo (1996).
She has also published several articles and book chapters on the right to the city, planning and housing policies, slums and tenements in São Paulo, financial investments in land markets, real estate promotion and homebuilders, inner-city gentrification, globalization, and public-private partnerships.
She won the 2012 award for best PhD thesis in Economics, granted by the Brazilian institution CAPES (coordinating institute for the development of higher-education professionals). Mariana is a member of the Housing and Human Settlements Laboratory at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, and has been working with “Right to the City” organizations for several years.

Ana Carla Fonseca, Garimpo de Soluções (Brazil) is a public manager and economist. She has a master's degree in management and a PhD in urbanism. For 15 years Carla managed innovation projects while based in São Paulo, London and Milan. She is a partner of Garimpo de Soluções, a pioneering company in the creative economy and creative cities. Carla addressed audiences in 5 languages in 25 countries, is an advisor for the UN, a curator of seminars and a consultant for companies and governments. She is the author of Marketing Cultural e Financiamento da Cultura (2002), Economia da Cultura e Desenvolvimento Sustentável (2006) and Cidades Criativas (2012).
Carla concieved and edited e-books such as Creative Economy as a Development Strategy (2008) and Creative City Perspectives (2009), coordinates post-grad courses at Fundação Getulio Vargas and National University of Cordoba and teaches at King Juan Carlos University. She is Content Director of ExpoGestão, a member of the International Association for the Economics of Culture (ACEI), of the Ibero-American Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Culture and Development, of the Global Pool of Experts in Public Policies (UNESCO), of Repensadores network, of the Board of Editors of Página 22 and of the Boards of Virada Sustentável, New Ventures Brasil, Minha Sampa, Creative Industries Development Agency (England) and Creative Business Cup (Denmark). Recently she was awarded a Prêmio Claudia, the most important women's award in Latin America.

Natália Garcia (Brazil)

Rupali Gupte & Prasad Shetty, Crit (India). Rupali Gupte is an architect and an urban designer based in Mumbai. She completed her Bachelors of Architecture from the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture (KRVIA), University of Mumbai and Masters of Architecture from Cornell University, USA. She has been a fellow at KRVIA and SARAI, Delhi and has worked as a consulting architect for several projects in India and US. She has been an Urban Design Consultant to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea. She currently works as an Asst. Professor at the KRVIA. Rupali has written and presented several papers on urbanism, infrastructure and housing in institutions around the world. Some of her involvements in urban development projects include the Redevelopment of Mill Lands of Mumbai, Redevelopment of the Eastern Water Fronts, Mumbai; Preparation of Comprehensive Plan for Greater Mendefera Region, Eritrea; Preparation of Heritage Guidelines for Dadar Parsi/Hindu Colonies; Evaluation of Slum Sanitation Programme, Self-Re-development of Various Slums and other Housing Colonies in Mumbai and Research on Tactical Practices in cities.
Prasad Shetty is an urbanist based in Mumbai. He has studied architecture (Mumbai) and urban management (Rotterdam). He is one of the founding members of the urban research collective; CRIT. He also works with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region – Environment Improvement and Heritage Conservation Society and teaches at the Rachana Sansad's Academy of Architecture in Mumbai. Earlier he has worked as an urban manager at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. He has also been a lecturer at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture; an independent fellow at the SARAI-CSDS, Delhi; a consulting urban management expert to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea; and an expert member to the Dadra–Nagar Haveli Planning & Development Authority. His work involves research and teaching on contemporary Indian urbanism. His recent works include: De-Mapping: an installation emerging from the hyper-mapping tendencies of urban study practices (supported by Khoj, Delhi); Bombay Talkies and Other Stories of Malad: a research on the land politics in the suburb of Mumbai (supported by Majlis, Mumbai); Being Nicely Messy: a research on projecting future mobility of Mumbai (supported by the Audi Urban Futures Initiative); and Gurgaon Glossaries: compiling the terms that are getting formed when the new city of Gurgaon is settling (supported by SARAI, Delhi & the Devi Art Foundation.

Charles Holland, FAT Architecture (UK) is an architect, writer and teacher. He is a director of the London based architecture practice FAT, whose work includes housing, schools, cultural and civic buildings, as well as interiors, exhibitions and design. Recent projects include the Museum of Copying – an installation at the 13th International Architecture Biennale, Venice – new production studios for the BBC and a collaborative design with the artist Grayson Perry for a new house in the English countryside.
Charles has been a director of FAT since 1996 and has been the principal in charge of a number of the practice's key projects, including the Islington Square housing scheme in Manchester. He has particular experience of housing design and resident consultation and participation. He ran the resident design workshops at Islington Square and has written extensively on issues of self-build and DIY design.
Charles also teaches and is currently a visiting Professor at Yale University in the US and a design tutor at the Royal College of Art, London. He lectures, teaches and writes regularly about architecture and design. Along with his FAT colleagues he recently guest edited an edition of AD with Charles Jencks, entitled Radical Post Modernism. He has written for Domus, Quaderns, Icon and Architectural Review amongst others and also edits the popular architecture web log Fantastic Journal. He can also be found on Twitter as @fatcharlesh.

Kazuo Nakano, dir. Urban Development of São Paulo (Brazil)

Ana Luiza Nobre, curator of the X Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo (Brazil) is a Brazilian architectural historian, author and critic based in Rio de Janeiro. She coordinates the Master in Architecture at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), where she has been teaching Architectural History and Theory for the last 10 years. She received her architectural training at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where she graduated in 1986. Later on she studied at the Politecnico di Torino, and received her PhD in History in 2008 at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is a member of CICA/International Committee of Architectural Critics, founder and ex-director of "Casa de Lucio Costa", a private organisation dedicated to preserve and disseminate Lucio Costa's work. She is author of several books and articles, and organises regularly seminars and exhibitions, mainly on modern and contemporary architecture in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.

Wagner Reheby, Urban-Think Tank, (Brazil) is an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects, concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism. Founded in 1993 by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner in Caracas, the philosophy of U-TT is to deliver innovative yet practical solutions through the combined skills of architects, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape architects, and communication specialists. Since 2007, Brillembourg and Klumpner have taught at Columbia University, where they founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and since July 2010, they hold the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology, ETH in Zürich. Their work concerns both theoretical and practical applications within architecture and urban planning. Working in global contexts by creating bridges between first world industry and third world, informal urban areas, they focus on the education and development of a new generation of professionals, who will transform cities in the 21st century. They have been awarded the 2010 Ralph Erskine Award from the Swedish Association of Architects for their innovation in architecture and urban design with regard to social, ecological and aesthetic aspects and in 2012 received the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale together with curator Justin McGuirk and photographer Iwan Baan. In the same year U-TT chair at the ETH Zürich published the book Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities. The U-TT has offices in Caracas, São Paulo, New York, and Zürich.

Damon Rich, Urban Designer for the City of Newark (USA) is a designer, artist, and the founder of CUP. In his exhibitions, graphic works, and events, sometimes produced in collaboration with young people and community-based organizations, Rich creates fantastical spaces for imagining the physical and social transformation of the world. His work represented the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, and has been exhibited at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Netherlands Architecture Institute. In 1997, he founded CUP, and was Executive Director for 10 years. Damon currently serves as the Urban Designer for the City of Newark, New Jersey, where he leads design efforts with public and private actors to improve the city's public spaces.

Nanne de Ru, Powerhouse Company (NL) is co-founder of Powerhouse Company and the director of The Berlage Center of Advanced studies in Architecture and Urban Design. He studied Architectural Engineering at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science and received the Master of Excellence in Architecture in 2002 from the Berlage Institute, Postgraduate Laboratory of Architecture, in Rotterdam. From 2002 to 2004 Nanne de Ru worked at Rem Koolhaas' AMO, the research branch of OMA, as lead researcher and designer. In 2005 Nanne de Ru founded Powerhouse Company with Charles Bressard. The practice has branches in Rotterdam and Copenhagen. Nanne leads the Rotterdam team. Since the beginning of 2013 Nanne de Ru is Director of The Berlage. He has taught and lectured at schools across Europe, such as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.

Supersudaca (Latin America). Supersudaca is an award-winning international think tank of architecture and urban research. In an almost stubborn way Supersudaca refuses to believe that the only space left for architects in Latinamerica is to build villas for rich people (though it does not discard that option altogether!). Its main driving motto has been to connect the usually disconnected Latinamerica architectural arena with projects directly related to the public perception such as recreation spaces, public spaces, installations etc. in various locations such as Caracas, Lima, Tokyo, Talca, Buenos Aires. Supersudaca continuously uses the workshop format with students from various universities worldwide to launch campaigns for such projects. Besides direct actions Supersudaca has two ongoing (award winning) research projects, one related to experimental social housing in Lima and another about the impacts of tourism in the Caribbean. More recently Supersudaca won the international competition of ‘vanguard' social housing in Ceuta, Spain with their design for 170 houses.

Carlos Teixeira, Vazio S/A (Brazil) has a BA at EA-UFMG (1992, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) and a Master's Degree at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (1994, London). Frequently focusing on the contradiction between “voids” and “fullnesses”, construction and destruction, his projects range from private houses to researches on the urban scale. He has published several books, most recently Entre (Cidades Criativas, 2010), a book that summarizes Vazio's research on body and space, urban art and the performing arts. He has shown his work at IV Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo; Pavillion de l'Arsenal, Paris; IX Venice Biennale; the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), London; the Victoria & Albert Museum (London); and the 29th Sao Paulo International Art Biennial. His office Vazio S/A (Void, Inc.) was established in 2002 and combines commercial commissions (houses, flats, etc) with the production of cultural events, participation in architectural competitions, publications of texts and essays, and research on new fronts in architecture. Vazio S/A adopts an active attitude in which the city and its problems are seen as triggers for new projects and as a source for new solutions and opportunities.

Guillerme Wisnik, curator X Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo (Brazil)

Track Changes

ewout — 2013-10-08T09:33:33Z

What is the basis for the traveling circus of architects and urbanists that tours the world's Biennales, conferences and Universities? Is it the same disconnected collection of international traveling architects meeting again and again? Are the biennales just a kind of an extension of the transfer halls and departure lounges the architects travel through, and the presentations as ephemeral or generic as the airport's adds and art? Or is there still a common cause that is reflected in the conversation and recognizable in the presentations? Does it make sense for Dutch architects to come to Brazil and talk with Brazilians, Nigerians, Germans and Americans about design techniques, strategy, politics and aesthetics?

The reason we are sending you this draft text, is that we are organizing precisely such a meeting, with you as guests, at the Sao Paulo Architecture Biennale. The text is an attempt to connect the Dutch experience in the wake of the financial crisis that has hit the architectural profession particularly hard, with a more global experience of the past decade. The attempt runs the risk of being forced, absurd even, because it tries to connect a financial crisis in one of the richest countries in the world, with political crises on the streets of Brazil and Turkey, and then proceeds to connect this to global trends in architectural and urban design.

This text needs a peer review, if ever one was needed. And you are our peers. We invite you to not hold back - we didn't either - and to comment on the text using Track Changes. We will honor every single remark, every addition, every subtraction, until in the end the text itself will be either the expression of our deep divides or of our common cause. Please take some time and have your way with our draft text. We see it as the beginning of a series of completely honest and vulnerable, aggressive and passionate conversations about architecture, economy, politics and the city. We will kick off with the meeting 'Track Changes', in Sao Paulo, 4-7 November 2013.

Dutch architecture's current position is defined by crisis. Financial crisis has paralyzed the construction industry, leaving hundreds of architects unemployed and almost silencing investment in design. An institutional crisis has also struck: parties who used to play their roles as principals, policy makers and platforms for design are now shedding their responsibilities, delegating them to others, privatizing or, because of mergers and cutbacks can hardly play any role at all. Finally, there is a political crisis that manifests itself in the crumbling credibility of both national and local representatives and administrators—while it was precisely this credibility that was the basis for the legitimacy of public construction and providing projects for designers.

At the same time, there is an increasing awareness that we are no longer dealing with a (temporary) crisis, but with an entirely new situation. At the macroeconomic level, it is conceivable that economic and demographic growth will cease completely for the coming decades, which means that the construction economy will lose its traditional base in rising land prices and property values. For developers and governments this means a drastic reduction in the number of construction projects. For the construction industry in general, it will mean that they will no longer be seen as an economic engine and will (and in fact, already has) cost them their central position in political and economic policy-making. For design, this implies a radical change in attitude that has traditionally focused on quantitative growth and development; designers will no longer be able to rely on traditional clients to realize their projects.

At the institutional level we also see changes that go beyond crisis cuts or mergers. The traditional arrangements between governments, semi-public and cultural institutions—which together ensured the centrality of architecture—have been broken or at the very least, minimized. Everything from research and publication subsidies to the strength and autonomy of housing associations has been repealed or removed. The real significance of this is that architecture is no longer seen as a natural presence in policy, but as one of the private or sectoral interests in what is now called ‘the creative economy'. Spatial design is no longer a medium through which to achieve public goals, but rather one of the private players that must search in the marketplace for support and assignments. This will substantially alter her position and agenda for decades to come.

Finally, there is the political 'crisis', behind which hides a fundamental political transformation with great importance for architecture and planning. The traditional hierarchy of empire, province, town—each with its own policy issues and alternating political parties, each supplying a portion of the directors, as well as the administrative and institutional framework that went with it—has lost much of its support. First, it lost to legislation from Brussels, then to other local interests and finally to a general lack of trust in politics. The development we now see is that the government increasingly delegates choices and tasks to a hybrid 'outside world' of local governments, social organizations and market parties, under the common denominator of 'society'. However, little distinction is made between social foundations and associations within reach of the civilian, democratically-elected governments or commercial institutions such as developers, insurance companies or housing associations. While there is clearly an urge to localism, democratization and socialization, this also produces a chaotic situation in which the citizen's control over his own habitat is not quite resolved, and he is in fact caught in the unpredictable margins between European legislation, a national political vacuum and local impotence. Within this currently unpredictable situation, a new political legitimacy must rise in the coming decades, one which will be very different than that of the Dutch 'decentralized unitary state' of the last 150 years.

There are different ways of responding to this triple crisis / transformation of the system. The reactions can be roughly divided into three groups. There is a sectoral trend that tries to defend and rescue their supporters' position, assuming that post-crisis economic figures will be strong enough to ensure future growth. We see this in municipalities like Rotterdam, where the local government continues to facilitate and even co-develop large-scale retail and office projects to get a 'post-crisis' step ahead of other cities. We also see it in the construction industry's lobby, where lobbyists demand priority in the economic policies of the government on the assumption that the construction sector will again be able to play a central role 'after the crisis'. Second, there is a globalizing trend. This assumes that the Netherlands' and Europe's economic growth, (and therefore also assignments for designers) is decreasing and will remain low for the time being. At the same time, it assumes that economic growth in countries outside of the EU is still high and is actually rising. The same applies to the slowness and difficulty of decision-making and social resistance to new large-scale projects. Some expect to circumvent these ‘local' obstructions by focusing on foreign markets. This holds true especially for large engineering companies, consultants, large architecture firms and more footloose young architects who perpetuate this trend by looking abroad rather than adapt their practice to the existing environment. Particularly in Asia, they can sustain their growth longer than in Europe or the Netherlands because of the strong centralized governmental frameworks and a natural acceptance of major projects and design consultancy.

Finally, there is a group of architects, entrepreneurs and activists who are trying to relate to the current system and shape their practices accordingly. They convert the absence of large jobs into an argument for the realization of tiny, quick and inexpensive projects, often in existing buildings, areas that have fallen into disuse or structures that are flagged for demolition. Instead of looking for support from institutional clients, they create their own assignments and rather than build for an abstract group of 'end users', these architects design and build a direct relationship with the user—often small, close-knit groups of like-minded people of which they are often already members. Politically, this group takes a critical stance against the official policy, and uses projects as a way to denounce the inefficiency, technocracy and abstraction of official projects and the official policy set. Participation, direct democracy, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding play a central role in their activities. Through these means, this group actually creates a political, institutional and economic framework for its design intentions from the inside out, albeit at a limited scale.

However, at the economic, institutional and political levels, the methods of this group often produce ambiguous results. Early on, this way of working was 'discovered' by institutional investors, developers and corporations as a way of place-making for temporary, participatory projects that both softened the conflict with existing users and simultaneously made the newly developing areas attractive for new users. Conflict often arises between the agenda of the architects and activists who actually wanted to change something, (to deepen, widen and lengthen their position) and those clients and institutional partners who simply want to use them as short, acupunctural marketing tools. Despite their difference of opinions, both sides voluntarily enter into this conflict because of the potential for effective implementation. Aside from the designers and activists who deliberately and strategically implement these projects, aware of the inherent tension and ambiguity, there is also an actual industry emerging of temporality, pop-up, participatory planning and crowdsourcing which is used by and for the institutional parties directly, without any ambition to achieve a greater strategic goal.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, the ambiguous position of such projects and practices—between confrontation and compromise—this is currently the only category that is a real alternative to the status quo, however fragmented and uncertain it may be. There are, in fact, new economic, political and institutional design tools being developed in conjunction and, it is assumed, these new tools are not intended to restore the world of 2008, but rather to explore a new situation where economic growth, centralized corporate governance, and an obvious institutional anchoring of architecture no longer exists.

It is therefore important to pose certain questions to this movement of architects, activists, research firms and entrepreneurs about their relationships, ambitions, relevance and future value. Can they manage to escape from the inward-looking, "hipster"-like connotation with which they are associated? Can they manage to keep their position and projects clear while working with institutional investors, who often have conflicting agendas? Will they be able to scale-up and broaden this way of working so that a serious alternative to the current system of spatial politics and construction can arise? Do these agencies have the right tools, knowledge, networks and aims to engage the margins and complexity that result from the many transformations the Dutch establishment is now experiencing? In other words, is it conceivable that the experiments and incidents that this generation of projects and practice brings forth might produce a new modus operandi for architecture and planning as a public, collective enterprise; just as happened sixty years ago with the pre-war modernist experiments that led to the institutionalization of modern design in the post-war period?

The association with post-war modernism leads directly to the question of whether the current generation of activist / bottom-up / participatory architects is part of an international 'movement', insofar as circumstances outside the Netherlands and Europe from which it springs (and reacts to) are relevant and how they face similar challenges. At first glance, we can answer this question with a definite yes. From Detroit to Sao Paulo, Amsterdam to Shenzhen, we see the same trend of temporality, pop-up, politically-engaged, DIY architecture popping up at Biennials and architecture events. At the same time, we also see a growing interest in ‘real life' projects and practice (carried out with minimal resources, for marginal users, in the margins of the city, and imbued with a political or at least collective agenda) developing within architecture education and publications.

In many places around the world, we see a growing tension between this conception of architecture as an authentic, politicized, and actually avant garde movement and as a fashionable phenomenon, incorporated by the market and institutions. From the barrios and favelas of South America, the townships of South Africa and the hutongs and Urban Villages of China, projects and architects are rising. Their political stance is unmistakable, but even these prototypes are producing a new type of 'starchitect'.

Unquestionably, the 'crisis' is a phenomenon that the entire world has felt and described, and thus serves as a backdrop for the new generation of architects. The financial crisis and subsequent period of economic recession are obviously global events. However, it is a general phenomenon that manifests itself in very different intensities, and in waves that break over various parts of the world. Thus, the financial crisis and its impact on the American construction and design world was rapidly executed, but now begins to soften. That same crisis started relatively slowly in the Netherlands, but has lasted longer and created an extremely inert construction and design landscape. In countries such as Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland we see that crisis and recession has a dramatic effect on citizens and architects, and actually leads to visible and tangible results within the city. Outside Europe, we see countries like Brazil and China, whose economies grew enormously during our worst years, but who are now starting to show signs of recession. This in turn has an effect on our economy in general and on the prospects of emigrated or architects working abroad in particular. It is possible to draw a wave representing the global economic climate and then to indicate the position of different countries on it. Such a diagram would illustrate when different groups of designers could learn from their predecessors about absorbing the effects of a crisis and / or recession. The question is, of course, whether they (can) learn from each other. Can a Brazilian architect learn something from a Dutch office.

A complicating factor could be that precisely the institutional level and politics are so different than in Europe that such a transfer of ideas and knowledge would become difficult. Still, we can recognize shared themes that span more differences than the economy, at least in terms of intensity and meaning. Sometimes they even go in opposite directions. At an institutional level in the Netherlands and many other European countries, we see governments increasingly withdrawing from architecture and spatial design, while in several South American countries governments are moving in precisely the opposite direction. Examples from Curitiba, Medellín, Caracas and Sao Paulo show how governments and public institutions are making increasing use of proper design and public planning to achieve socio-economic goals. But at an institutional level throughout South America, Asia and Russia, the collective meaning of architecture is also put under extreme pressure by the extensive mixing of state intervention and commercial real estate interests, leaving little opportunity for communities, citizens or civil society to play an active role. In many of the countries Dutch architects have emigrated to with great optimism, spatial planning, architecture and even public space are totally insensitive to social influence and largely ignored in the public debate.

However, this brings us to the third level: that of politics itself. 2013 has been called ‘the year of the protest'. The political crisis seems to roll like a wave across the world, often with a direct or indirect link to the physical environment. From the protests against the construction on Gezi Park in Taksim Square, Istanbul, to the protests against the increasingly expensive public facilities in the context of mega projects like the World Cup in Brazil, to the riots in the modernist residential areas of Stockholm, there is an epidemic of exploding public frustration and large-scale projects are often the symbol of an autocratic, insensitive, ineffective government. In Sweden's case, the riots highlighted the fact that the government has allowed immigrants to become isolated in remote mega-structures where no native-born Swede dares to tread, and where daily life is more heavily affected by diminishing welfare benefits. Even the Arab Spring of 2011 now appears to be back in Tahrir Square in Cairo, where the population called for the resignation of a corrupt and violent new government by occupying a public square; protestors even created an environment to support a months-long protest, complete with amenities such as doctors, libraries, restaurants and sleeping areas. It is also clear that the western Occupy movement exhibits a tendency to unify these events, and while Occupy is anti-capitalist and slightly anarchic, the movements in the Arab states and Malaysia are actually fighting for an open market, the right to entrepreneurship and fair democratic government. For the most part, the riots in Sweden, London and Paris lacked a political agenda, while the protests in Brazil and Istanbul can be seen as the revolt of an intellectual middle class, and thus lie somewhere between the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Despite their differences, however, we can see the many protests and riots as part of a global phenomenon of political crisis, and we see the clear emergence of a global language and methodology of protest. In addition, the themes of democracy, local self-determination, civic society, bottom-up, participatory and temporarily autonomous places of protest and community have become a shared international phenomenon. Tahrir Square, Syntagma Square in Athens and Gezi Park have become part of us all, and now form a spatial-political international reference. But the most important lesson from half a decade of protests in the wake of the financial and political crises, is that democracy, civic society and participation can no longer in a culturally relativistic manner be put down as Western obsessions, with no meaning in the east or south—an argument often used by Western architects with major projects in autocratic countries in Asia or the Middle East. The political crisis and the resulting transformation to a new system is also a theme that we share, nuanced, of course, by totally different intensities and historical backgrounds.

The hypothesis of our project in Sao Paulo, then, is that there is reason enough for a group of architects of a certain philosophy to connect with their counterparts in Brazil and throughout the world, coming together for the Biennale. We are inspired by post-war modernism, when modernist architects from the pre-war avant-garde margin suddenly found themselves at the center of institutions and their shared language as modernist architects was used to talk about the future of their profession in a truly international way. We are especially inspired by the young generation of that movement in the 1950s, a group of designers frustrated by the tendency towards bureaucracy and technocracy of the reconstruction, who wanted to inject the original idealism and humanism of pre-war modernism into the massive building projects of the postwar period: Team X. Like Team X, we want to start with a group of architects from completely different backgrounds, but who share a certain attitude towards their work at a fundamental level as well as a number of political and social standpoints regarding democratization, participation, economics and politics. Just like the famous meetings of Team X, we want this group of basically like-minded professionals to collaborate with each other on profound and sensitive projects representing broader challenges at the political, economic, social or institutional levels, but simultaneously addressing local elaborations. Others are then invited to respond here as critically as possible, with the idea that we are dealing with a shared understanding and a shared ambition. Moreover, we assume a shared moment in the development of these practices, namely that they have behind them several years of successful individual projects, which have now also been able to prove their use in the real world, but that they now stand before the next threshold: how can this way of working really affect daily practice, policies, and the physical environment? How can this generation make the transition from the avant garde to the center, from the exception to the standard, from the elite to the society? Can they, in this way, learn from each other?

Crimson architectural historians, July 2013